Moulin Rouge, La Goulue

Moulin Rouge, La Goulue — Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. 1891.

Medium: Color lithograph on tan wove paper. Dimensions: Image: 189 × 115.7 cm (74 7/16 × 45 9/16 in.); Sheet, sight: 191 × 117 cm (75 1/4 × 46 1/8 in.).

Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Moulin Rouge , La Goulue was Toulouse-Lautrec’s first commissioned poster, created to advertise the performance of dancer La Goulue and acrobat Valentin le Desossé at the iconic Montmartre dance hall. With thousands of copies pasted around Paris, the poster was an instant success, propelling Toulouse-Lautrec into the artistic limelight and attracting numerous commissions from other performers and cabaret owners. In this image, Toulouse-Lautreccaptured the exhilarating experience of being onstage, but he also designed a composition that traps La Goulue in her spectacle: between the bright yellow stage lights, the anonymous silhouetted crowd, and the provocatively posed Valentin.

Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.